


Oh, Let Me Dream

by AKA_47



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: F/M, No one dies!, One Shot, dancing metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16114889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKA_47/pseuds/AKA_47
Summary: Victoria dreams of a world in which she and Lord M can be together. Somewhere in the universe, a modern Will and Victoria dance through life together.





	Oh, Let Me Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I believe that all my Victoria stories can be summed up by Lord M asking, "are you well, Ma'am?", which I might have to examine, but is also one of the only ways I can contrive for the breech of protocol necessary for me to weave these scenes.
> 
> A short one shot interwoven with some modern AU snapshots. Dialogue of the last vignette stolen from the show. 
> 
> It was just a quick Google search, but the title and vignette titles (hopefully) come from a Victorian ballad. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**I. Of happy days gone by…**

 

He loved to dance with her, to grab her from the sofa and fall into step to no music at all. That their bodies moved together so easily was its own small miracle, that she fit into his arms and wanted to be there. To dance with Victoria was easy in a world that had shown him so much pain and, he suspected, her so little love. They would sway on the spot, and no matter what had happened that day, no matter what disagreement or what creeping doubt had tried to pry them apart, Will would know that they were alright.

She was tiny, but she liked to reach up and brush at his hair. Even when they were revolving, she felt grounded, and she loved that too, as much as she relished his steady heartbeat against her listening ear, pressed against his chest. Sometimes Victoria felt that she loved him too much, but then she would catch his eye and see such a fathomless affection that she felt safe. Will couldn’t hurt her; he didn’t have it in him.

It was like an unspoken language, so that she almost knew that he would come and dance with her before he’d crossed the room. There was something in the glint of his eye, a joyous mischief. He was especially likely if she wore her blue blouse, the one that he said matched her eyes. If she’d muted the television to focus on the book she was reading, he would come to her, and the spinning of the world would settle. It was impossible to feel small and afraid in Will’s arms.

But sometimes, when they broke apart and the world came roaring back… it was all the more terrifying for the loss of him.

 

**II. Forgetting sorrows that have come between...**

 

There was a rushing in Victoria’s ears and she gripped her horse’s bridle tighter between her gloved hands. She’d lost the train of Lord M’s conversation and she feared that she’d missed some pause in it in which she had been expected to interject. She bit back the nausea brought on by the world spinning around her and inclined her head in a half nod, which evidently was not what Lord M’s question had required of her.

 

“Are you well, Ma’am?” He’d brought his horse to a standstill, watching her keenly.

 

“Quite,” she said, a bit briskly. It was unsettling how well he could see through her. She imagined Queen Elizabeth had been particularly good at masking her thoughts, and momentarily hated the ease with which her prime minister was able to read her. “What is it that you were saying, Lord M?”

 

There was something in the set of his mouth that suggested, had she been a woman and not the Queen, that he would have pressed his point further. But before any protocol could be breeched he recalled himself. “Only that an English marriage would be looked upon favorably, Ma’am.”

 

For only a second, Victoria let her eyelids close against the grass of the park that swam before her. Out of the darkness flashed an image of herself in a white dress, very different from any she could dream of, a clinging satin that revealed more of her skin then she ever would have dared, her hair long, set in loose curls against her bare shoulders. The phantom Victoria looked down at her hand to see a gold band glinting on her finger, and then another hand captured hers. She looked up to see the familiar eyes of Lord M, and he was looking down at her with the tenderness he always did. But there was something else too, something like possession, certainty, and Victoria knew that they were married. She gasped, not in the waking dream she had conjured, but in reality, and her eyes shot open.

           

Lord M was looking at her here too, but his gaze was full of such concern that she was certain she must have been a dreadful sight to behold.

 

“What’s happened, Ma’am?”

 

He could not touch her here, though her otherwise unfocused eyes did land on his hand as it twitched toward her. She was the most powerful woman in the world. She employed hordes of people whose only jobs were to cater to her whims, but she could not command his love, and it was all she had ever wanted. Yet, somehow her mind had concocted a way in which they could be together. “I have seen…” but she could not tell him, he would think her mad. She didn’t want anyone to tell her that it was nonsense, she wanted the scene again.

 

“We should go inside, Ma’am. You are unwell.”

 

“Yes, perhaps I should rest.” But before either could turn their horses back toward the palace, she had slipped from the saddle and plummeted to the ground below, deaf to Lord M’s distressed shout.

 

**III. In youth, we plucked full...**

 

There was no sound save their mingled breaths; the cacophony of rushing ambulances, pounding music, the busy London streets muffled by door, window, heavy curtains, sheer force of will. She pressed a quiet kiss to his jaw, and he to her temple. The clocks seemed to have stopped, time measured by the touch of lips against skin. They had forever. They would always say, “I love you,” this way. It was a wish, but also a silent promise they had made on their wedding day.

He’d been hurt by a wife who had run off, she’d been all but pushed aside by a cold mother and stepfather. Neither had been taught that the three words meant much at all, but when they touched? Words didn’t seem to matter.

 

_You are safe_ the brush of his nose against hers said, clear as a bell.

 

_I’ll protect your heart,_ her lips against his neck promised.

 

“Dance with me?” she asked aloud.

 

“Always, Mrs. Lamb.”

 

**IV. Many a flower that died…**

 

“Why have you woken me?!” William heard Victoria rage against the doctor.

 

“Your Majesty fainted…”

 

The man’s quavering voice trailed to nothing and William couldn’t help the small smirk that played against his face. He could just imagine how fearsome she looked, even pale, disheveled as she must be. It was no small feat that he could be smiling at all with the terror that had engulfed him at her fall. To see her, still and senseless, was his worst fear manifested. But she would be alright, there was no other way forward. He could not see any other future. Would not.

 

“Her Majesty wishes to see you.”

 

William looked up, startled, to see that the doctor had emerged, looking chastened. William fought against his mirth again as he saw his way inside the room, but it died away as soon as he laid eyes on her. She lay in bed, her own eyes looked glassy, fevered, and even at a distance he could see the sweat that gleamed on her forehead.

 

He hastened forward to kiss her small hand, warm against his lips. Did he imagine that she sighed against the fleeting touch?

 

“How are you feeling, Ma’am?”

 

With the slighted tilt of her chin she invited him to sit, and he didn’t argue. He could not altogether tell whether he was elated to see her alert before him, or terrified that she had not recovered. Either way, the heady mixture made him feel quite weak.

 

“You ask after my wellbeing so often, Lord M, and I do not reciprocate. It is unkind.” It was not an answer, but it was coherent, and William let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

 

“It is not, Ma’am.” His lips quivered in an almost smile. “Besides, I am not the one who just fell from a horse.”

 

She waved off the occurrence as if it were nothing. “But you must have your own troubles. Will you share them with me?”

 

Victoria folded her hands in her lap in a show of patient intent that was belied by the quick jerk of her fingers in their steepled cage.

 

“Lately, Ma’am, my only trouble has been that you were unwell.”

 

She let out an exasperated sigh and he an answering chuckle. “Truly, Ma’am.”

 

Suddenly, as though his answer had triggered some hidden resolve within her, she drew in a breath and some of the glassiness of her eyes cleared. “If I am such a concern to you, Lord M, I wonder if I might ask you a question.”

 

“Anything, Ma’am.” His answer came without reserve, as easy as breathing.

 

“Though I think that I must speak as a woman, and not a queen.”

 

Inside, he steeled himself. Outwardly, he tilted his head for her to continue. “It is plain to me, Lord M, that we do quite well together, you and I.” She paused, but he didn’t dare interrupt, not certain whether he willed her to continue or silently pleaded that she stop.

 

“I have seen…” she shook her head. “I am sure that we could do quite well as…husband and wife.”

 

She was much too vulnerable in the bed, lying before him. By rights, he should not have been in here at all, should not have listened to her speech, should not have provoked it. For, it would be foolish to pretend that he had not encouraged this. He loved the young Queen. He made no secret of it, but he should have known to protect her against infatuation. He should have known to guard his feelings. Yet, he did not want to, even now. She had been shown so little of love that he could not bear to steal it from her when it was in his power to give.

 

Still…

 

He could not.

 

So, he began to weave a tale about rooks. He talked of Caro, though in truth she had not much entered his thoughts since he’d met this beautiful force of a woman. He lied to his sovereign and told her that he could not imagine a life with her, though even as he said the words the picture of their happy, easy life together formed before him.

 

He wanted to be with her. He wanted her happiness more.

 

“I see,” her voice was barely above a whisper. “Then I am sorry to have called you in here, Lord Melbourne.”

 

**V. As we danced along…**

 

“How did I live so long without you?” It was the kind of question Will would have felt silly asking in daylight, with any other woman beside him, but Victoria, bathed in moonlight, her lips in an inviting bowstring pout that made his heart ache just to look at? There seemed in that moment no more serious a question.

 

She hummed in agreement, but he only laughed.

 

“You’re too young to possibly know what I mean!”

 

She smacked playfully at his arm. “Shut up, you’re ruining the moment.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said as he captured her lips.

 

“Smart ass.”

 

**VI. Like us, whose lineaments remain…**

 

“I wasn’t sure if I would dance with you tonight.”

 

“It would be unkind for Elizabeth to refuse her Lester.”

 

Victoria had not seen again the marvelous vision of their lives together, though she had closed her eyes many a time in vain hope. It was a silly, girlish sort of hope to live for a dream when the man that held her heart was before her, even if he would not have her.

 

“But even though he was free…they never married.”

 

The world was set to rights when he held her hand in his, carefully guiding her through the steps of the dance as he did so often with the ways of the kingdom she ruled. He seemed to know just when to hold tighter, just when to let go.

 

“I think both he and The Queen understood that they were not in a position to marry, whatever their inclinations.”

 

It was hope and reality mixed into one. It was an, _I love you_ as clear as any she had ever heard.

 

 


End file.
